Who was your driver of the 2014 Italian Grand Prix weekend? This is taking into account the whole weekend and not just the race. Please use the comments below to tell us why you voted the way you did.
thejudge13
F1: Daily International News roundup, inside whispers and insight together with thoughts and opinion
Fastest in FP1
2nd Fastest in FP2
Fastest in FP3
Fastest in all 3 qually runs
Fastest lap of the race
Race winner…..
There can be only one….. Hammer time! Can’t touch this, oh oh oh!
hamilton due to sheer dominance in all sessions. second best was close between ricciardo and perez.
So, Lewis won the race, congratulations. But does that make him the best driver of the weekend? In some minds maybe, but I think differently. He was without a doubt on top of his game this weekend, but do trainings really count when other team factors can play a role in a driver’s performance? Is a pole position reason enough to crown someone with that ‘award’?
What counts most for me is the race and there, Hamilton did the bare minimum. After his dismal start, due to no fault of his own, he got back into second place where he received the lead, gift-wrapped from his team-mate.
What did Lewis actually have to show in the race that made his performance better than one of those other drivers in the points who fought and came out on top? When Hamilton was pushing, Rosberg was saving fuel. When we were just about to see a fight for the lead, Rosberg failed to mount a challenge. I’m not saying that the guy couldn’t have become driver of the weekend for me, but with an easy victory like that, my vote goes to a more deserving driver.
Massa had an uneventful Sunday, finishing exactly where we expected a Williams to be. Bottas had a decent result and was always catching up in the ranking, but it didn’t look like his over-takes were particularly difficult. Ricciardo definitely looked to be one of the better drivers of the weekend for me, but my vote goes to Kevin Magnussen. His 5 second penalty was an outrage, but even without taking that one scene into account, he was one of the raciest people in the mid-field, losing out only to people with clearly superior cars.
Good contribution Dan. When you’re in the best car by a mile a 1st or 2nd is expected.
I’d give it to Ricciardo. His move on Vettel was pure class, despite Hippo’s fair comment assertions….
So is it DOTW or DOTD?
Vettel beat Ricciardo FP1, FP2, FP3 and Quali – good comeback…
So Hamiltons can never be driver of the race?
No he can’t… damned if he does and damned if he does not. That is the unfortunate position he finds himself in… one of the fastest drivers in the best car… ho hum!
No he can’t. Vettel never could in the eyes of the visitors of this site because he had the best car. So why is it different for lewis?
….when you find such divine favour in the incredible talent handout, it’s hardly fair on the mere mortals…. Let them win something eh?
Yeah, nah.
Dan’s poor qualifying drops him below KMag.
Driver of the weekend gets the best from his equipment for the five sessions on track, but particularly quali & race.
MP4-29 is a dog, Kev did well to make it jump through some hoops, albeit in a defensive mode. Without that M-B mill the Macca’s would be duking with Caterham / Marussia.
@RogerD.
Dan qualified one place behind his 4-time world champion teammate, so I’m not sure I’d class that as a poor qualifying performance, considering also the renault engine versus the host of MB engines in the top 10.
Seb’s not much of a market these days.
Dan ran so wide through parabolica on hottest attempt in Q3 he would have had severe gravel rash last year. Tenths left on the table when the whips are cracking is poor by his high standards.
Im curious who you think is the best driver on the grid right now.
Best or fastest? HAM fastest and Alonso best
From all the drivers in the field, I think Ricciardo is probably doing the most impressive job this season. He manages to consistently beat his four-time-world-champion team-mate and even managed to poach as many as three victories whenever Mercedes wasn’t on top of things.
There are other drivers being faster than their team-mate, but in my opinion Rosberg is closer to Hamilton than Vettel is to Ricciardo. Alonso is doing his usual good job of out-performing his team-mate all of the time, but he hasn’t suddenly become better just because Räikkönen can’t get anything going.
Couple of things I disagree with….
Training/FP does count, because that’s the point at which you’re able to tell which driver/team are looking in good shape for the race. 9 times out of 10, the pecking order in FP, does carry over into the rest of the race weekend.
Sure Nico was told that, “he may need to save a bit of fuel”, when did he start to do so? We don’t know. But why did Nico need to save fuel in the first place? It was reported in practice and even during the race, that fuel would not be a problem. When the message was relayed to Nico, Brundle even made a statement, that he thinks Nico under fuels his car more than Lewis. Also, why wasn’t Lewis given the same message? Let’s also not forget, that he was not able to do a full race simulation on Friday, so he went into the race not knowing how the tyres would behave for a full stint or how fuel consumption. Yes Nico missed out in FP3, but he only missed out on not being able to do a qually simulation, which is not as important as a race sim. So this goes back to my first point, that training/FP, is important, because that’s where the teams are able to use the data gained, to accurately (at best) to plan the whole race strategy.
To say, “with any easy victory like that” again I disagree with. To go from 1st to 4th due to technical issues and having to firstly work his way back up to 2nd, was not easy. Sure he has the best car, but he had a Williams in front of him and they are no slouch. Pulled off a brilliant move on the outside of Massa (some should send Nico a copy of that move 😉) just playing, he set about his job. He was consistently faster than Nico all weekend and it was that speed and pressure that forced Nico into making such a critical error. I can assure you, had it been the other way round and Lewis was the one who made that mistake, the comments that would’ve followed, would be unprecedented. He cracked under pressure, he’s mentally weak, he got owned by Nico etc etc etc.
So he didn’t receive the lead gift wrapped. He pitted one lap after Nico, came out 2+ seconds behind him and from then on, was over .5 of a second quicker, at no point did we see Nico respond to his speed, took him 2 laps to wipe out that margin. It was that speed that forced him to try and respond which lead him into making such a critical error. Don’t believe me? Then read or watch in his interviews where he clearly stated as much.
@the judge….
Why not Bottas? He did as much, if not better than Ric. Ric was on tyres that were 7 laps fresher than all the drivers he passed. Up until that point, he was nowhere in the race. Maybe if Seb was able to clear the cars in front of him before he boxed, I’m sure he would’ve finished ahead of Ric.
Maybe because Ricciardo ran a different strategy to others to put him into play at the end.. still needed to make it work forhimself
….Bottas had a better car…. seeing a Renault powered car overtake is a thing of pure mystery to me 😉
“To go from 1st to 4th due to technical issues and having to firstly work his way back up to 2nd, was not easy. Sure he has the best car, but he had a Williams in front of him and they are no slouch.”
Mercedes had a car fully on par with Williams in terms of top speed. If you take a look at the official FIA documents concerning top speeds and speed traps during the race, you’ll see Hamilton separated from Massa by no more than 2 kph. If you take the generally faster car (Mercedes finished almost half a minute ahead of Massa) and add DRS to the mix, then overtaking became a lot easier for Hamilton than for many other drivers in the field.
He did a nice job though and I’m certainly not saying that Hamilton only got lucky at Monza. There was very little during the weekend he actually had to fight for however, but when he did, it was easy to see the Mercedes being the fastest car on track.
It’s not so easy to judge under these circumstances, but I wouldn’t want to do that with Hamilton’s performance against his team-mate this weekend anyway, because I found it very strange how Rosberg felt relieved to finish second. The first thing he said on the podium, without remembering the exact words, was that he was happy Hamilton won. I’ve never heard him talk like that before, so who knows if that mental state played a part in his inferior performance.
“But why did Nico need to save fuel in the first place? … Brundle even made a statement, that he thinks Nico under fuels his car more than Lewis.”
At that point in the race, Rosberg had already used 1 kg more fuel than his team-mate, despite the latter driving more aggressively on his way back to second place. I have no idea why he keeps using more fuel like that, but it is one thing I have noticed in other races before, so it seems to be a general issue.
Lewis can handle an aggressive rear-end, so has his brake bias further backwards. This allows more ERS recharging under braking, and less fuel used total.
At Monza specifically, this allowed Lewis more ERS out of the Lesmos (Nico used more of his on chicane exits to match Lewis), which, when combined with slightly more downforce, gave Lewis that 2 tenth advantage on Nico all weekend.
Once again, thank you for the context Fortis.
To say “Vettel never won because he had the best car” is a misnomer. Looking back in the archives DOW began in late 2012, but only in earnest last season, so, the Vettel never won trope rings hollow. Hamilton first won DOW at Silverstone but in the few comments there are the only name I recognize is Don_Quixote, who began his grudging support of LH with, “Never thought I’d say this but…” really, now.
After Hungaroring, here’s what DonQ actually thought of Hamilton: “You could argue he has the fastest car now” and, “Lewis is special but just needs to focus on the job at hand and less to the superstar life…”
This is similar to the comment a SkyF1-friendly journo made after the Monza driver’s presser: “Did you see all the bling on him!” Hamilton had on his trademark diamond earrings Rolex. But the journo didn’t stop there. After some pushback about LH being the GQ Man of the Year, he added, “But there’s Nico, with a plain t-shirt and jeans.”
Hamilton wore the Mercedes fitted training tee and jeans, Rosberg a plain Mercedes tee and jeans.
After Monza, as he walked throughout the paddock area, Ted Kravitz put forth the theory that Rosberg making his mistake purposely: “Did Nico make his mistake because he was told not to challenge Lewis? Did he do it to avoid a battle with Hamilton?”
Within minutes Twitter was aflame with full blown assessments of Rosberg’s meltdown – all of which ended with some version of, the team ordered Rosberg to let LH win.
Rosberg’s hitting of LH’s car at Spa, which we now know Rosberg admitted – backed by everyone at Mercedes – that he intimated he was going to put LH out if he could, became, according to SkyF1, “A silly mistake.”
And this was AFTER the SkyF1 crew talked about knowing that Rosberg said he would hit Hamilton before Spa and asking, “In light of what we now know about what Nico said before Spa, what do we think of what he did at Monaco!!!”
Thursday evening SkyF1 aired a 4-journo roundtable about Ayrton Senna which included Murray Walker. The final question was, “Is Senna the greatest driver of all time?” The first to answer, hemmed and hawed about eras as he gathered his true thoughts. He concluded that Senna’s Suzuka incident with Prost precluded him from being the best ever. Someone had the audacity to name Gilles V. as one of his 3 drivers better than Senna. Walker, who earlier finally admitted he despised Senna only because Ayrton wasn’t “nice to me like other drivers were,” ended the 4-person consensus that because Ayrton said he was going to take out Prost is it came to that and then did it, he could NEVER be considered the best driver.
There is no doubting that Senna was the best driver of his era, that no driver has approached him since and that before him only Clark and Fangio are in the “best” conversation with him, F1 journalists have never forgiven Ayrton Senna for EXACTLY what Nico Rosberg did to Lewis Hamilton at Spa. Senna – never forgiven; Rosberg – silly mistake.
Hamilton – best car; Hamilton – can’t deal with pressure; Hamilton – superstar life; Hamilton – bling.
Lewis Hamilton: DOW – Bahrain, China, Britain, Germany, Hungary, Italy.
THE most difficult challenge for ANY sports person is to ——– be perceived as “the best” and then go out and actually Be The Best event in, event out. In sports/games like golf and tennis and F1, where it is you vs. “the field,” being the best each event is even more difficult – as we’ve seen from those sports, nigh impossible.
Out of those three sports, the person who came closest to perfection in the modern sporting era was another reviled figure – John McEnroe. In the 1984 tennis calendar year his record was 82-3. Not Tiger Woods, not Prost, or Senna or Schumi. Not even “my main man” Roger Federer, who came oh so close in 2005 (pre-widespread doping in tennis led by R. Nadal) when he was 81-3 but lost his season final match in 5 sets to finish his season, 81-4.
In pure comparison to team mate and team standing I think Kobayashi is an almost totally ignored star of the weekend – out qualified both Marussia and was consistently 3 -7 tenths quicker than Bianchi per lap for the majority of the race on the same tyre strategy. At one stage the gap was around 30 seconds between them! Not to mention being more than a second quicker than his team mate per lap for most of the race too. People rave about how good Bianchi is, so why no similar accolades for Kobayashi? Closer to the front my vote would be for Ricciardo – showed impressive race craft throughout the race.
Agreed. Kobayashi is a class act. Get’s over looked by fans. Maybe his poor use of english doesn’t help
…. excellent point Lochlan…. after being messed around in Spa too….
I vote for Kvyat, ok he didn’t win, he didn’t started from pole, he even didn’t scored a single point. But what a pace! Without the penalty he would have finished ahead of Vettel . Only Mercedes, Williams and Ricciardo were faster than him.
He gets a 10 in my book, just for his T1 escape. 200+ mph and not only did he keep out the wall, he didn’t even hit the styrofoam barriers either.
Sorry to correct you Fortis, but he did. Left side, second row.
….Good call, and his ‘save’ at turn one with a lap to go was not just fortunate….
Perez deserves a mention too, for a very strong race, even if I didn’t vote for him.
Agree.. good battle with Button
For sure, Massa! Hey, he probably only has a year left in F1 but it is nice to see him not only get a podium but also finish in front of his excellent team mate.
Well one day on from the race and the majoority of the TJ13 collective vote has Ricciardo as DotW with 30% of the vote (as at writing).
Despite the commenters, the voters clearly are a switched on crowd and see the reality.
A worrying amount of votes for Ericsson!
A special mention needs to go to Kvyat – started 21st, finished 11th, beat Vergne, and produced one HELLUVA save!
Max Chilton
Because he showed us what he’s made of.
“I believe I can fly..”